Jump Trading Simulation joins research on utility of home health monitors

Thursday

Jun 19, 2014 at 9:26 PM

Pam Adams of the Journal Star

PEORIA — Home health care could become more like a high-tech alarm system if a new research partnership involving Jump Trading Simulation and Education Center and a national healthcare bio-technology company is successful.

“I think the technology will provide really nice surprises. I think it will reduce costs and suffering,” said Dr. John Vozenilek, chief medical officer of Jump. “I think it will reduce costly hospital readmissions, and readmissions only occur when people are suffering.”

Vozenilek describes Jump’s new partner, Intel-GE Care Innovations, as the makers of a sophisticated, medically-oriented home-monitoring system. Area residents will be part of a study that monitors the most intimate aspects of their lives for the sake of their health.

Using smart sensors attached to walls, pillboxes, refrigerators and other moving objects, Care Innovations monitors and analyzes a person’s daily routine at home. For instance, the sensors can detect how many times a person gets up from the couch, how many times someone uses the bathroom, if he or she falls and whether medicine is taken on time.

Blood pressure, heart rate and other vital signs are being monitored by the system, which is also capable of providing customized answers to basic health care questions or demonstrating the correct way to perform a physical therapy exercise.

The information helps health care providers gauge how well patients follow treatment plans after they leave the hospital — or if any of their daily activities seem out of the ordinary. More importantly, for Vozenilek, it can alert doctors, nurses and home health care workers to problems before the next doctor’s visit or emergency call.

“The whole idea is to keep better track of how patients are doing at home, especially after they’ve been discharged from the hospital,” Vozenilek said.

Intel-GE Care Innovations uses advanced technology supplied by RespondWell, a software platform designed to improve patient adherence to physical therapy, and Lively, makers of a sensor-based activity tracking system of the same name.

Lively CEO and co-founder Iggo Fanlo touched on the implications the research could have for the home health care field. “The global demographic ‘tsunami’ is driving enormous need for home care that cannot be fulfilled by human beings alone,” Fanlo said in a press release.

The partnership between OSF Healthcare and Intel-GE Care Innovations allows the technology company to use the Jump center as the sole site for a two-stage research project.

Jump will conduct focus groups using its simulated single-bedroom home in the first stage. Doctors, nurses and home health care workers will give their impressions of how well the sensors work.

The project will then enroll about 100 patients for real-life evaluations of the technology in their homes.

Vozenilek acknowledged some people might find the technology overreaching.

“It isn’t good for everybody, I wouldn’t prescribe it for everybody,” he said. But, he added, people have become more accepting of technology, such as cell phones and GPS systems, if it’s meaningful for them.

“This provides better connections to the physician and, for a physician to know how well you’re doing, you’ll accept some intrusion.”

Pam Adams can be reached at 686-3245 or padams@pjstar.com. Follow her on Twitter @padamspam.